{"id":388155,"date":"2026-01-03T03:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388155\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T03:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T03:17:09","slug":"cops-forced-to-explain-why-ai-generated-police-report-claimed-officer-transformed-into-frog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388155\/","title":{"rendered":"Cops Forced to Explain Why AI Generated Police Report Claimed Officer Transformed Into Frog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Law enforcement has quickly embraced AI for everything from drafting police reports<\/a> to facial recognition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The results have been predictably dismal. In one particularly glaring \u2014 and unintentionally comedic \u2014 instance, the police department in Heber City, Utah, was forced to explain why a police report software declared that an officer had somehow shapeshifted into a frog.<\/p>\n

As Salt Lake City-based Fox 13 reports<\/a>, the flawed tool seems to have picked up on some unrelated background chatter to devise its fantastical fairy tale ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe body cam software and the AI report writing software picked up on the movie that was playing in the background, which happened to be \u2018The Princess and the Frog,’\u201d police sergeant Rick Keel told the broadcaster, referring to Disney\u2019s 2009 musical comedy. \u201cThat\u2019s when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department had begun testing an AI-powered software called Draft One to automatically generate police reports from body camera footage. The goal was to reduce the amount of paperwork \u2014 but considering that immense mistakes are falling through the cracks, results clearly vary.<\/p>\n

Even a simple mock traffic stop meant to demonstrate what the tool is capable of turned into a disaster. The resulting report required plenty of corrections, according to Fox 13.<\/p>\n

Despite the drawbacks, Keel told the outlet that the tool is saving him \u201csix to eight hours weekly now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not the most tech-savvy person, so it\u2019s very user-friendly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Draft One was first announced<\/a> by police tech company\u00a0Axon \u2014 the same firm behind the Taser, a popular electroshock weapon \u2014 last year. The software makes use of OpenAI\u2019s GPT large language models to generate entire police reports from body camera audio.<\/p>\n

Experts quickly warned that hallucinations could fall through the cracks in these important documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned that automation and the ease of the technology would cause police officers to be sort of less careful with their writing,\u201d American University law professor Andrew Ferguson told the Associated Press<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Others warn that the software could further pre-existing racial and gender biases, a troubling possibility considering law enforcement\u2019s historic role in perpetuating them<\/a> long before the advent of AI. Generative AI tools have also been shown to perpetuate biases<\/a> against both women and non-white people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the technology is being used by the same company that provides Tasers to the department is alarming enough,\u201d Foundation for Liberating Minds in Oklahoma City cofounder Aurelius Francisco told the AP.<\/p>\n

Critics also argue that the tool could be used to introduce deniability and make officers less accountable in case mistakes were to fall through the cracks. According to a recent investigation<\/a> by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Draft One \u201cseems deliberately designed to avoid audits that could provide any accountability to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to records obtained by the group, \u201cit\u2019s often impossible to tell which parts of a police report were generated by AI and which parts were written by an officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAxon and its customers claim this technology will revolutionize policing, but it remains to be seen how it will change the criminal justice system, and who this technology benefits most,\u201d the Foundation wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Heber City police department has yet to decide whether it will keep using Draft One. The department is also testing a competing AI software called Code Four, which was released earlier this year. <\/p>\n

But considering Draft One\u2019s inability to distinguish between reality and a make-belief world dreamed up by Disney, let\u2019s hope the department thinks long and hard about the decision.<\/p>\n

More on AI policing: AI Is Mangling Police Radio Chatter, Posting It Online as Ridiculous Misinformation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Law enforcement has quickly embraced AI for everything from drafting police reports to facial recognition. The results have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-388155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}